WWC: The Brian Bendis/Geoff Johns Love-In

The Bendis vs. Johns panel at Wizard World Chicago turned into more
than just a "battle" between two of the most prolific comics writers,
who jokingly wrestled when they first got on stage. It turned into the
first Marvel and DC panel ever, as Bendis and Johns invited their
friends to take the stage.

After their pretend brawl, Bendis said he first communicated with Johns way back when he wrote a fan letter for Powers #4. He said they have a lot in common and compared their "parallel career" and "similar philosophies" about superheroes.

"But we come at the material in such different ways," Bendis said. "And
quite often, someone who I'm annoying the shit out of has Geoff to rely
on to give him the kind of comics he wants and vice versa. So we
thought when this panel turned into a 'versus' panel, it inspired
another idea.

"So we're about to hijacked our own panel. We're going to call out some
names, and if you're in the room, please come on the stage," Bendis
said.

As the creators went to the stage, they sat on one side or the other of
the podium depending on whether or not they worked for DC or Marvel. As
the Marvel side started to fill up to the point where there were no
chairs, Reed sat down with the DC guys, right next to Van Sciver.

When there were complaints the sides were uneven, Johns joked: "We asked Greg Rucka to come but he was grumpy."

"We thought there was so much crap online about Marvel vs. DC, and we
kind of hate it, to be honest with you," Bendis explained. "We're all
friends, and we all have the same goals and needs and things that we
want to do in the business..."

"Lies!" Simone deadpanned to laughs.

"So we thought, you know what?" Bendis continued. “Let's have a Marvel
and DC panel. Let's talk about all the cool shit we've liked about
comics, and all the cool stuff that we argue about comics. Let's let
you ask us questions that you ask us individually and maybe hearing
both of our answers might be interesting to you."

"This is the first Marvel/DC panel ever," Johns said.

"Hopefully not that last one, so don't embarrass me," Bendis said.

The first fan to approach the microphones that were set up in the panel
room started by timidly saying, "Are we allowed to ask controversial
questions?"

"Yes!" several panelists yelled out, the whole room expecting something deep and meaningful from the fan.

"Uh... why don't you have any hair?" the fan said to Bendis, starting
off an atmosphere of silliness right away as the crowd laughed.

"He said why don't you have any hair?" Johns repeated loudly with a smile.

"No, I actually have hair," Bendis said. "I can grow the hair. I've
seen what I look like without hair, and I've done everyone a favor by
getting rid of the hair. Listen if you're -- and I'm not saying you are
-- but if it's going away, get rid of it. I'm telling you. You think
about it all the time. You're thinking about, 'When is it going to go?'
... I don't want to do that. Take control of it. Just get rid of it! It
frees your mind!"

The next fan was Newsarama contributor Jim Beard, who asked, "Is
lateness really a problem in the industry and what can be done about
it?"

Bendis immediately said, "I think it is" at almost the exact time Johns said, "I think it is."

"We need more hours in the day," Simone said. "That's the only thing that's going to solve it. We're just so busy."

"Take away their X-Boxes," Bendis joked.

"By the way, I kicked your ass on Halo every time we played," Johns said.

Bendis, who was reluctant to admit the ass-kicking despite the
appearance he'd just been owned and the loud response from fans,
replied: "Honestly, I played you Call of Duty and you hung up halfway through the game 'cause you were getting your ass kicked so bad."

"Oh yeah, Call of Duty, you did school me on that because I had never played before and you had been playing for three weeks," Johns said.

The panelists then turned more serious, talking about the issue of
lateness in the industry, with Bendis saying he understands "act-of-God
stuff."

"Some people get pneumonia and then a book gets derailed and you've got
to forgive. You know, a book gets derailed. It happens. Really, books
should never be solicited until they're completely done. That's not
always up to us, though," Bendis said.

He added that often, creators think everything's going to work out and
the book will be finished in time. He used the example of Secret Wars,
saying that Gabrielle Del'Otto was hitting a "decent schedule" for a
year, so they thought they could solicit the book. "It derailed
awfully, and once something derails, it's hard to get it back with some
semblance of quality," he said.

Johns said sometimes the internet overreacts to what they perceive to be "late."

"I'd love to see the internet when Watchmen was coming out," Johns said.

"Camelot 3000, the last issue took a year and a half," Bendis agreed.

But Johns said it is a problem that has gotten worse. "I remember Ethan and I were working on Green Lantern: Rebirth, and I think we were two weeks late, and we thought it was the worst thing in the world, 'cause back then that was the worst thing in the world. But now books are like two, three months late," Johns said.

At this point, the "versus" part of the panel erupted again as Van Sciver said, "What about Spider-Man/Black Cat?" to laughs from the crowd. "Hulk versus Wolverine."

"Yeah, at least we finished my Action Comics story," Johns joked.

"I think because things get so out of hand, [fans] do get upset," Johns
said, returning to the issue at hand. "It's when the sales fall that
people will really do something about it. And because sales do fall on
late books now, I think it's not so far one way.

"I know DC right now is very sensitive about late books," Johns said. "And they'll do whatever they feel they have to get them out."

Bendis asked the other panelists, "What's your best lie when you're late?"

"I never lie, I just say I'm going to turn it in tomorrow, and then I just don't," Finch said.

"I just say I did it. I did 10 pages. But I did only 2," Coipel said.

"I'm pretty good," Bendis said, adding that his favorite thing he'd
heard was when an artist was very late on a book and when they guy was
asked what he was doing, he took a picture of his drawing table. A
folder on the table showed that the artist had been gathering
references. "He took a picture and handed in the picture," Bendis said.
"And then he was removed from the book."

Johns said he worked with an artist once whose grandmother died. "And
then there was a flood. And they were in the south, and the cemetery
was above ground, so they had to go find the grandmother's coffin,"
Johns said, giggling. "And the first time, I thought, OK, maybe that
did happen. But then like a year later, the same excuse was used."

Johns said occasionally he does get behind, but he didn't think he ever
lied. "Usually I just say I'm working on something else. Usually I am,"
he said. "Unless Halo's out."

Simone said she didn't have any good lies, but she does have computer
problems. "That can slow me down," she said. "Things just happen that
are honest."

Van Sciver joked, "I've just gotten to the point where editors don't even bother asking."

Reed said he's actually never been late. "Coming up in the industry and
starting with Bendis, I learned to be six months ahead at all times or
panic," he said. "I think right now, with Secret Invasion: Front Line
is the first time that I've had to solicit before I've had a script
done. And that was complete panic mode, and now I'm sitting here at the
con writing the script."

"You'll do your best work," Johns said.

"But Secret Invasion is done, just FYI," Bendis told the crowd, but then later leaned to the microphone and said, "That was a lie, by the way."

As the laughs grew, Simone joined in. "All issues of Wonder Woman are done for perpetuity," she said.

"I just wrote Action Comics #1000," Johns added.

The next fan asked if there would be another inter-company crossover like JLA/Avengers.

A fan asked about the merits and cons of the Marvel and DC multiverses.
Bendis seemed to know what she was asking, and tried to explain it to
the panel, telling the woman at the microphone what she was asking.

"This is a set-up question!" Johns joked.

"It told you to say it like this," Bendis said,

"This thing's rigged! Is that your sister?" Johns asked.

"Not anymore!" Bendis said.

"This sounds like a pro-Marvel slant to me already," Johns said.

"That's why I wanted it asked."

The fan clarified that she was wondering about the pros and cons of each multiverse.

"The cons are when someone screws up," Johns said. "The pros on the
Marvel side is that they're separate, so they can have the Ultimate
Universe and the Marvel Universe. But personally I think the DC
Universe -- this is my opinion -- is much more epic in scope. Time
travel and all that stuff works a lot better, in my opinion, than in
the Marvel Universe."

Bendis said there are differences, and he had the same discussion when
Jeph Loeb came to Marvel, said he had a "DC idea" about the Marvel
universes and it just didn't work at the other company. The creator
then said he thought the concept of only 52 worlds could be a problem
because that means the creators have to have one that is dominant.
"Doesn't that create an actual problem?" he asked.

Johns said it's true that the main DC Universe was the dominant
universe about which stories are told. "It's not like we've got Earth-2
books. Earth-10 books," he said. "I also think, in my opinion, that the
multiverse was a little overused initially, and it's going to be scaled
back."

"Yeah, I actually, not to be nice," Johns said, turning to Bendis with
a smile, "but I actually do really like how you're structuring your Secret Invasion, Mighty Avengers and New Avengers stuff."

"That's one thing we have in common is we like the challenge of the
long form," Bendis said. "It's very similar to your Green Lantern
plans. They're a long-form plan that you and I are in a position to
accomplish because we have a long-term contract and we know we're not
going to get canned."

"A lot of writers don't like to do long-term books. I like to stay on a
book for five, six years," Johns said, the fans responding with loud
applause.

The next question was about a list published in Wizard Magazine that
had Wolverine first and the highest-ranked female on the list was Kitty
Pryde.

"Jews loved it. Jews rule," Bendis joked.

"Yeah, that's crazy. There would be none of these other female
characters without Wonder Woman. She's the #1 female character," Simone
said.

"No offense to Wolverine, but Batman's waaaaay better," Johns said to loud cheering from the crowd.

"Then why are you killing him? Hmmmmm??" Bendis said.

"R.I.P. could stand for lots of things," Johns said to laughs. "Like.... run in place!"

"I would so buy that. I swear to God," Bendis said.

After a fan asked Cebulski about his Wonderlost series
from Image (and Cebulski said, "I did not pay him"), he asked what was
each creator's favorite thing about he other universe.

"I worked at Marvel extremely briefly during a very interesting time,"
Johns said. "I worked with Tom Brevoort, who is one of my favorite
editors in the business...."

"... and editor of Secret Crisis, by the way," Bendis joked.

"I really had a lot of fun with Tom on Avengers. I really
enjoyed the characters there. It was a lot more grounded. It felt like
the characters were a little bit more heavy, a little bit more gritty.
And sometimes that's fun. Like I love characters like Punisher and
Ghost Rider. And I love Hulk. We don't have those over at DC too much,"
Johns said. "That's why Black Adam's such a bad-ass. We need him."

"What I like about the Marvel Universe is the whole concept of the
X-Men and how much the concept of being an outsider is what those
stories revolve around. They gain their powers and they seem
organically gained. Although I do think a lot of the female characters
need a little jazzing up," Simone said. "And I've always loved
Spider-Man. I think that he's really easy to identify with, especially
if you're a younger kid getting into comics."

Simone said she had a great time when she was working at Marvel too.
"There were a lot of things I liked about Marvel," she said, but then
added, "the thing I like about DC is that if I want to do a kids book,
I can. If I want to do an adult book, I can. There's just a lot of
options. I tend to like to do a lot of different types of projects at
the same time."

"Having not worked with DC stuff yet but just reading it, I love that
anything can happen on the next page and it doesn't necessarily --
well, to say it doesn't make sense sounds bad, but like, Wonder Woman
can come home and have gorillas in her living room and you go, 'OK,
cool.' If Professor X comes into his room and there's gorillas in
there, that's going to be weird," Reed said. "Booster Gold right now is
just, like, 'Oh, we're going to go here in this time and this is the
crazy shit that happened.' And you go, OK! DC lets you roll with that.
Where with Marvel, I've got to always set up a lot more and have a
logic behind it. There's that weird freedom you guys have got that I'm
kind of jealous of some days."

"That's what we do all day long," Johns said to laughs. "Hey! No big deal! Time travel!"

"And that's why DC books aren't late now," Reed said.

"I think for me, with the DC Universe, the thing that I like is the
sense of history and of legacy," Cebulski said. "The mantle of the
Flash and the mantle of Green Lantern has been passed down from
generation to generation, whereas at Marvel it's almost like we have a
single generation there. And on the flip side, what I love about the
Marvel Universe is the sense of familiarity."

Cebulski said he thinks that's why Kitty Pryde is so well-liked and may
have made the Wizard list -- because people can relate to her.

"Very few people outside this room know who Kitty Pryde is," Van Sciver
said, defending the idea of Wonder Woman being ranked higher.

A fan yelled out that X-Men 3 probably shouldn't have been made anyway.

"True," Johns said.

Finch said he thinks the Marvel Universe has characters who feel more
"real" to him and he likes that they're grounded. But then he said he'd
loved to draw Gotham City and not have to reference buildings in New
York all the time. "In the book I'm doing right now, I've got Times
Square. And I had to draw it like five times, and I don't care. I hate
it," he said. "With Gotham, I could draw bridges and the sky and all
kinds of crazy stuff, and the cars look so cool.... and the villains
are so cool. There are a lot of things, visually, that I think I would
be very comfortable with at DC."

Pham said he also likes how grounded the Marvel characters are, but he
likes how the DC characters almost feel like "gods among humans."

Coipel said DC characters are more iconic. "I think it's pretty strong,
so I like DC characters, but apart from that, it's kind of hard to find
something I like at DC. Marvel! You know? Sorry!"

Bendis said he thinks about it a lot, and he wonders about whether DC
has characters to whom people can relate. He thinks about it a lot when
he's writing Peter Parker, he said. "And I think about that when I'm
writing other characters as well. What can anyone relate to about this?
And I wonder about that... about Batman..."

"But you know, Marvel's a lot more literal on that stuff, whereas
Superman's representative of being an outsider," Johns said. "And I
like representation better than, it's exactly what it says."

Bendis said, yeah, but he's still Superman at the end of the day. "I mean, boo hoo. He's still Superman," he said.

Johns said, "Yeah, but at the end of the day, you still have Spider-Man
powers, and you're worried about this piddly 20 cents for Aunt May's
aspirin?"

"I like that idea, actually," Bendis said, pretending to note the story idea.

"I do like Lex Luthor, actually. I do relate to him," Bendis added to laughs.

Simone said that it may be true that Kitty Pryde is more relatable, but
Wonder Woman can have adventures and crazy things happen to her, and
she likes reading and writing those kinds of things better than
something that is so grounded.

Reed added that the last issue of Action Comics struck him
as being a very "Marvel" comic. "It was very Spider-Man to me," he
said, saying that the introduction of all the characters at the Daily
Planet felt very grounded and real, much like the characters introduced
at the Daily Bugle in the Spider-Man comics he read when he was a kid.
Reed asked Johns what his approach was to that issue versus any other
Superman issue.

"Uh... it was the first issue in a storyline, so I just wanted to introduce the cast," Johns said to laughs. "But thanks."

A fan asked about what book at the other company each creator would like to write.

Simone: Spider-Man.

Johns: Hulk.

Van Sciver: Ghost Rider.

Reed: Batman. "How do you say no to Batman?"

Coipel: Legion. "To work with Geoff." (To which Johns said: "Anytime you want.")

Pham: Secret Crisis.

Finch: Batman. "I mean, obviously. Batman."

Cebulski: "I'd work on Batman with him any day. But Teen Titans for me."

Bendis: "Me and Alex Maleev. Plastic Man. Vertigo."

At that point, Van Sciver, who has a Plastic Man book in development at
DC, said, "I've been saying that for years! And everybody says, no!
What are you talking about? Plastic Man isn't a cool, scary character."

A fan said he wanted to see Bendis and Johns get together and write a
story about Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne golfing together. "No, that's a
strip club issue," Bendis joked.

After an update on the White Sox/Cubs game score ended up with a fan
and Reed defending their teams (with Reed clearly a Cubs fan), Johns
joked that you can't talk about sports at a comics convention. And
Bendis said, "This is like a message board thread derailing, only in
person."

The creators were asked about superhero movies, and Simone and Van
Sciver said they were just talking about it before they came up on the
panel.

"Iron Man and Hulk were two of the best superhero movies I've seen,"
Van Sciver said, adding that he thinks Marvel is doing with their
movies what he has thought they should do all along -- cross over the
actors in their roles as these characters.

A fan asked if DC was nervous about Marvel's movies impacting comic book sales.

Johns, who had been quietly drinking from a water bottle for much of
the movie discussion, answered, "Well, DC's been number one for years
in sales. So we're a little nervous."

Bendis stood up and looked at Johns and asked, pointing at the water bottle, "You got vodka in there?"

"Right. How many covers did you have on Iron Man #1? I think it was, like, 10," Van Sciver said.

"It was 11," Cebulski said to laughs from the DC-centric crowd.

"And DC tries to shill out stuff?" Johns said.

"Maybe you should," Bendis said, but then added seriously that he
thinks the movies do impact bookstore sales while not impacting direct
market sales.

Simone said it's building the industry because it's making readers more
diverse and making people more accepting of superheroes and the things
in comic books.

Bendis pointed out that society doesn't read anymore. "They'll sit in front of the TV and watch f--king Dances with Stars," he said. "You'll tell them, you like the Batman movie? You should read Killing Joke.
And they're like, what? I can't tell which way the balloon points! So I
just like to focus on the wins. Because you know what? People aren't
reading anything anymore."

Johns said he also thinks people might want too much from comics.
"Everybody wants them to succeed, but they don't need to sell, like, a
billion copies a month," he said.

The panel returned to the discussion of movies, and Cebulski said he
thinks the reason Marvel movies are doing so well is that Marvel
Studios has approached the character's movies from the perspective of
Marvel. Reed agreed that it's a difference between Marvel having its
own production company and Warner Bros. owning the rights to the DC
characters and not developing them as quickly.

"I guarantee you in the next five years, we're going to see DC's program completely change," Johns said.

A fan asked if any of the creators ever read, wrote or drew a comic that brought them to tears.

"Like we'd ever admit that," Johns said.

"You mean like self-loathing? I've done that," Bendis said, pretending
to cry and saying, "Why wasn't this better???" He then said he'd had
the experience where he's been choked up by a scene. "It's as pure as
you an get it, and you can't force it," he said.

Coipel said the scene with Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Magneto in House of M
made him emotional and make him really dedicate his energy to the
scene. "When I read the script, I thought it was very strong," he said.
"You try to transfer this emotion and keep this emotion when you draw
it."

Simone said she goes through it a lot when she's writing characters. "I
really fell in love with Scandal," she said. "I wrote a scene where she
became a torturer. And I was really crushed by that because I liked her
character so much. But I knew she needed to go the next level."

Van Sciver said a script he received from Grant Morrison for New X-Men
was emotional for him. It was the scene where Professor X, who is
possessed by his sister, makes Beak beat Hank McCoy with a baseball
bat. "When I read the words, I was absolutely overcome by it. By the
ugliness and betrayal of the scene. By the heartache and sadness of it.
I just sat in my easy chair and felt like crying. It was so much for me
to actually have something like that to tackle, because I was still a
new sort of artist. I worked my ass off on it trying to make it come
through."

"Most recent for me was with Captain Marvel when the truth came out
about him, and I hit this moment where I was on the top of the roller
coaster, you know. And you'd really like to get off now," Reed said,
saying that it's "weirdly liberating" to get through that with the
character.

"It can go the other way too," said Johns. "When Kyle's broken down by Parallax [in Sinestro Corps Special #1], Ethan drew the pages and it made me, when I was putting on the dialogue after the art was done, just say wow."

Bendis said a recent issue of Ultimate X-Men almost got him. Finch then joked that he got kind of torn up when he got to draw Spider-Woman coming down the stairs.

A fan asked about Final Crisis #2 and whether the panelists were confused by it.

Van Sciver said he's not a continuity expert, but he understood the second issue.

Bendis then defended Grant Morrison's work on Final Crisis,
telling the fan that if he sticks with it to the end, he might be blown
away. "There are different Grant Morrison experiences," Bendis said. "I
don't know Grant. I've never spoken to him. But I've also been thinking
about Final Crisis too, and remembering I had a similar reaction to the first two issues of The Filth
too. I was like, what's going on here? There were giant hands! But at
the end of it, I was like, 'Oh, that's the best comic I've read all
year!' And I'm not even sure I got it all. And I'll read it again. And
I've bought it every time it came out.

"I don't know that you'll have that feeling" with Final Crisis,
Bendis said. "But you may have that feeling at the end. "Not everything
has to be spoon-fed. And I love to spoon feed. But that doesn't mean
everything has to be the same flavor. Look, it may be the biggest 'what
the f*#k?' ever. But there's a track record with him that it might end
up being like The Filth. Which would be awesome."

A fan asked if the creators think it's a problem when fans buy continue
to buy a book they don't like, whether to complete a run or just
because they like a character.

"Why are you looking at me?" Bendis joked.

Bendis said a fan on his message board had a good point in comparing it
to being a sports fan not dropping a team even if they're doing badly.

"The only book I ever followed no matter what as The Flash," Johns
said. "And that had some rough patches. But I followed it. Everything
else, if I didn't like the book, I couldn't do it anymore."

"But honestly, I found that to be the most eye-opening experience,"
Bendis said, realizing that people are "fans" of characters. "I
appreciate anybody who reads anything for any reason. And even some of
those people who are screaming and yelling at me about the characters I
write. I always think they're getting the most out of their two
dollars."

A fan asked if the writers ever get really attached to artists?

Simone, who was sitting between Johns and Van Sciver, joked, "Why do
you think I'm sitting between these two? Got to break them up sometime."

"It can be a very emotional relationship, the collaboration between a
writer and a penciller," Bendis said. "And not to be weird, and a
couple guys who have worked with me are about to give me the weird eye.
But it can almost be like dating. Like your in a relationship and
you're getting along, but then all of the sudden you break up for like
no reason. Like me and Olivier had a blast, and now he's on Thor. And I'm like, 'Oh, JMS is f*^king my girlfriend. That's great."

The panelists, who wanted to continue, were told they had to go because
the convention needed to prepare the room for the Warren Ellis even
that took place later that night. Fans booed.

So as a final question, they allowed a young kid who was in line at the microphone to ask his question.

"What's your favorite hero from the 'other' universe?"

Cebulski: Batman.

Finch: Batman.

Pham: Superman.

Coipel: Legion. All of them.

Bendis: "What do you guys publish?" he joked. "No... I love the Question. Love the Question."